summarize-youtube

name: summarize-youtube description: High-quality YouTube video summarization using the local summarize CLI with yt-dlp + whisper.cpp transcription and Claude CLI by default. Use when asked to summarize a YouTube video, extract a transcript from audio (not captions), or run a repeatable best-quality video summary workflow.

Summarize YouTube

Overview

Produce best-quality summaries from YouTube videos by transcribing audio with yt-dlp + whisper.cpp and summarizing with Claude CLI. This avoids caption-track errors and keeps the workflow reproducible.

Quick Start

1. Run the script with the video URL: scripts/summarize_youtube.sh "<youtube-url>"
2. The summary is printed to stdout. Redirect to a file if needed: scripts/summarize_youtube.sh "<url>" > /tmp/summary.md

Workflow

1. Confirm a whisper.cpp GGML model exists at: ~/.cache/whisper.cpp/ggml-medium.en.bin
2. If missing, download it with: nix shell nixpkgs#whisper-cpp --command whisper-cpp-download-ggml-model medium.en --output-dir ~/.cache/whisper.cpp
3. Run scripts/summarize_youtube.sh to transcribe via yt-dlp + whisper.cpp and summarize with Claude.

Options

• --cli <provider>: claude (default), codex, gemini
• --length <preset>: short|medium|long|xl|xxl (default: xxl)
• --model <id>: whisper.cpp model id (default: medium.en)
• --timeout <duration> and --retries <count>: pass through to summarize
• --extract: transcript only (no LLM summary)

Script

scripts/summarize_youtube.sh is the canonical entry point. Prefer it over hand-crafted commands so the workflow stays consistent.